August 6, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



377 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office : Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND CLASS MATTER AT THE POST OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. Y. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1890. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 



Editorial Articles: — National Parks — Botanv at the University of Montpel- 



lier — Wasteful Methods of Cutting Timber 377 



Native Shrubs of California. — IV Edward L. Greene. 378 



Foreign Correspondence: — London Letter . IV. fVa/son. 379 



New or Little Known Plants : — Clematis Fremontii. (With figure.) 380 



New Orchids '.R. A. Rol/e, IV. 380 



Cultural Department: — Notes on American Plants F. H. Horsford. 382 



Planting Conifers in August IVm. C. Strong. 382 



A Few Strong-Growing Adiantums IV. H. Taplin. 383 



Rose Notes.'. E. G. Hill. 384 



The Brazilian Miltonias H. Clinhaberry. 384 



Herbaceous Paeonies J. C. Tallack. 385 



Disa tripetaloides John Weathers. 385 



Kniphona (Tritoma) Saundersii, Chrysanthemum maximum G. 385 



Plant Notes :— Papaver Californicum C. R. Orcutt. 3S5 



Clematis montana '. 386 



The Forest: — The Sihlwald. — II. (Illustrated.) Gifford Pinchot. 386 



Correspondence : — Our Schools and Gardening E. P. Powell. 387 



Bermuda Grass Thomas Median. 387 



Recent Publications 3S7 



Notes 387 



Illustrations :— Clematis Fremontii, Fig. 40 381 



View in the Sihlwald 383 



National Parks. 



LAST week we spoke of the necessity of some imme- 

 diate action to save a remarkable grove of Giant Se- 

 quoias in Tulare County, California, and since the paper 

 was published we have received a petition addressed to 

 Secretary Noble, in which the facts we published are set 

 forth with the prayer that the land may be withheld from 

 entry until Congress has an opportunity to act upon the 

 matter. The petitioners desire that Congress shall set 

 apart this particular group of Big Trees, which are scattered 

 over some four or five square miles, together with certain 

 other outlying groups, as a "national park." to be devoted 

 to public use forever. There is little doubt that the senti- 

 ment of the country would favor such a consummation. 

 The Mariposa Grove, it is true, has been reserved, but this 

 is comparatively small and isolated. The other forests of 

 these Big Trees are disappearing with frightful rapidity. 

 The Fresno trees are already condemned, and the mills 

 are running now which will soon convert them into lum- 

 ber. It is lumber, too, which the speculators want who 

 have recently obtained possession of much of the Sequoia 

 lands in Tulare County, and, of course, these trees must 

 go. It is to be remembered, too, as John Muir points out 

 in the current number of the Century, that more trees are 

 wasted in these mill operations than those which are actually 

 made use of, because, after the manageable trees have 

 been cut and blasted and sawed, fire is let loose among the 

 refuse to clear the ground, so that the trees which were too 

 large to be converted into profitable lumber are destroyed 

 as well as the saplings and seedlings. As we have often 

 said before, the vast herds of sheep in these mountain pas- 

 tures create a desolation even greater than that caused by 

 the axe, and here, too, the fires which are kindled to im- 

 prove the pastures sweep through the forests from end to 

 end, and these groves of mammoth trees will soon be 

 nothing but a memory unless some legal protection is 

 thrown about them. It must be admitted that our experi- 

 ence with so-called "national parks" hitherto has not been 

 encouraging. One has only to read the defense of the man- 

 agement of the Yosemite Park by the Governor of Cali- 

 fornia to be convinced that its scenery has been muti- 



lated and defaced almost beyond the power of restoration. 

 But if any additional evidence was necessary the illustrations 

 of Mr. Muir's article above referred to will furnish it. Here 

 we see soft expanses of meadow turned into plow-land 

 and the stumps still standing and still sound of some 2,000 

 thrifty young trees which have been cut away for some 

 unknown purpose. Besides this total destruction of the 

 trees we see beautiful groups of young conifers disfigured 

 into the likeness of German toy-trees by having all their 

 lower branches ruthlessly lopped away. There are rising 

 murmurs of complaint to the same effect regarding the 

 Yellowstone Park, and even the Niagara Reservation, 

 which is in the heart of a civilized country and embraces 

 so small a space that it can all be easily and constantly in- 

 spected, is only kept from being hopelessly vulgarized by 

 constant watchfulness on the part of the people. 



It is perhaps a misfortune that all lands set apart for pub- 

 lic use should be designated by the name of "park," a 

 word which suggests to most people some attempt at gar- 

 dening or decoration. This proposed reservation will be 

 primarily a forest and it should be so designated. Cer- 

 tainly it should not be called by a name which has come 

 to be adopted as a common title for fair grounds, race 

 tracks, play grounds, city squares, groups of adjacent 

 private residences, and many other things equally incon- 

 gruous. It is plain that any attempt to dress out a' Sequoia 

 forest with ornamental planting or floral finery would be 

 ridiculous. What is needed in such a place is the preser- 

 vation forever of the essential natural features of the scen- 

 ery. The motto of the association whose work brought 

 about the law for the Niagara Reservation was " To pre- 

 serve the Scenery of Niagara." This, in a broad sense, 

 should be the aim in administrating the Yosemite, the Yel- 

 lowstone, and the Tulare Forest. No other justification 

 for taking possession of these places in the name of the 

 people is needed than an honest effort to preserve, as we 

 have inherited them, these treasures of beauty and sub- 

 limity, of majesty and mystery, of grandeur and of grace, 

 and to transmit them unimpaired to our posterity. 



But while everything like artificial embellishment should 

 be avoided in the preparation and management of these 

 representative pieces of scenery, there is an opposite dan- 

 ger to be shunned. It is too often assumed that because a 

 place is to be treated naturally, it can therefore be success- 

 fully administrated by men who have no special aptitude 

 or training for such work. It is admitted that study should 

 be given to a w.ork of landscape art in which artificial ar- 

 rangement and construction prevail, but it is taken for 

 granted, on the other hand, where a simple and natural 

 treatment is desired, that no thought or study is demanded. 

 Therefore it happens that Governors and others who have 

 the appointing of executive officers for the administration 

 of Reservations like the Yosemite feel that they do their 

 whole duty if they only select men of energy and honesty 

 and business ability. But the fact is that the problem of 

 preserving as nearly as possible the original and natural 

 expression of a given piece of scenery is quite as difficult 

 a one as the creation of a landscape picture out of the raw 

 material. It is a general truth that, in every work which 

 makes appeal to the aesthetic sense, simplicity of concep- 

 tion and of treatment is an essential condition of the high- 

 est success and is the crowning proof of genius. And in 

 this special case it is plain that only an artist of the first 

 rank is able to decide what are the essential and enduring 

 features in a given passage of scenery and what are merely 

 temporary and adventitious. It will not be enough to let 

 the trees alone in the Tulare Forest. It must be adapted 

 to human convenience. Roads must be prepared and 

 other arrangements made so that it can be seen, and seen 

 by great numbers of visitors at all seasons, and to the best 

 advantage always. And these arrangements must be made 

 not for to-day, but for all time, and during this time the 

 forest will be constantly changing. Trees will grow and 

 trees will die, and it will require the exercise of the keenest 

 foresight to make a preparation which will best meet these 



